Many different orthopedic casting materials have been developed for use in the immobilization of broken or otherwise injured body limbs. Some of the first casting materials developed for this purpose involve the use of plaster of Paris bandages consisting of a mesh fabric (e.g., cotton gauze) with plaster incorporated into the openings and onto the surface of the mesh fabric.
Plaster of Paris casts, however, have a number of attendant disadvantages, including a low strength-to-weight ratio, resulting in a finished cast which is very heavy and bulky. Furthermore, plaster of Paris casts typically disintegrate in water, thus making it necessary to avoid bathing, showering, or other activities involving contact with water. In addition, plaster of Paris casts are not air permeable, and thus do not allow for the circulation of air beneath the cast which greatly facilitates the evaporation and removal of moisture trapped between cast and skin. This often leads to skin maceration, irritation, or infection. Such disadvantages, as well as others, stimulated research in the orthopedic casting an for casting materials having improved properties over plaster of Paris.
A significant advancement in the art was achieved when polyisocyanate prepolymers were found to be useful in formulating a resin for orthopedic casting materials, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,479 (Garwood et al.). U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,479 sets forth an orthopedic casting material comprising a knit fabric which is made from a high modulus fiber (e.g., fiberglass) impregnated with a polyisocyanate prepolymer resin such as polyurethane. Orthopedic casting materials made in accordance with U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,479 provide significant advancement over the plaster of Paris orthopedic casts, including a higher strength-to-weight ratio and greater air permeability. However, such orthopedic casting materials tend not to permit tactile manipulation or palpation of the fine bone structure beneath the cast to the extent possible when applying a plaster of Paris cast. In this regard, fiberglass knit materials are not as compressible as plaster, and tend to mask the fine structure of the bone as the cast is applied.
Although fiberglass fabrics are somewhat radiolucent they sometimes tend to mask the underlying bone structure to x-ray penetration. Oftentimes a fine mesh or a "shadow" can be seen on the x-ray image. This mesh, corresponding to the knitted fiberglass backing, obstructs the penetration of the x-rays and thereby obscures the fine detail of the underlying bone on the x-ray image. This is clearly undesirable.
Fiberglass backings have further disadvantages. Most, if not all, commercially available fiberglass casting bandages are comprised of filaments with diameters much larger than 3.5 microns (.mu.n). While 3.5 .mu.m fibers are considered by the scientific community to be non-respirable, there exists a sizable number of customers that have become concerned about the inhalation of fiberglass dust generated during cast removal.
Moreover, orthopedic casting materials involving knit fabrics such as fiberglass are somewhat expensive, and may be cost prohibitive for some users. In addition, fiberglass backings are comprised of fibers which have essentially no elongation. Because the fiber elongation is essentially nil, glass fabrics do not stretch unless they are constructed with very loose loops which can deform upon application of tension, thereby providing stretching of the fabric. Knitting with loosely formed chain stitches imparts extensibility by virtue of its system of interlocking knots and loose loops.
Like most knitted fabrics, fiberglass knits tend to curl or flay at a cut edge as the yams are severed and adjacent loops unravel. Fraying and raveling produce unsightly ends and, in the case of an orthopedic cast, frayed ends may interfere with the formation of a smooth cast, and loose, frayed ends may be sharp and irritating after the resin thereon has cured. Accordingly, frayed edges are considered a distinct disadvantage in orthopedic casting tapes. Stretchy fiberglass fabrics which resist fraying are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,609,578 (Reed), the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. Thus, it is well known that fraying of fiberglass knits at cut edges can be reduced by passing the fabric through a heat cycle which sets the yarns giving them new three-dimensional configurations based on their positions in the knit. When a fiberglass fabric which has been heat-set is cut, there is minimal fraying and when a segment of yam is removed from the heat-set fabric and allowed to relax, it curls into the crimped shape in which it was held in the knit. Accordingly, at the site of a cut, the severed yams have a tendency to remain in their looped or knotted configuration rather than to spring loose and cause fraying.
In processing extensible fiberglass fabrics according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,609,578 (Reed), a length of fabric is heat-set with essentially no tension. The fabric is often wound onto a cylindrical core so large batches can be processed at one time in a single oven. Care must be taken to avoid applying undue tension to the fabric during wind-up on the knitter which would distort the knots and loops. To prevent applying tension to the fabric during winding, the winding operation is preferably performed with a sag in the fabric as it is wound on the core. As is evident from the foregoing discussion, the entire process of knitting and heat-setting a fiberglass fabric is quite complex and expensive.
Alternatively, U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,403 (Buese) describes a method of making a stretchable orthopedic fiberglass casting tape by knitting an elastic yam under tension into the fiberglass fabric in the length direction, releasing the tension from the elastic yarn to compact the fabric and removing the elastic yam from the fabric. The casting bandage produced using this fabric, although stretchy, contains the aforementioned disadvantages of fiberglass casting bandages.
An example of an orthopedic bandage using a polyester fabric which is not a knitted fabric is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,323 (Boricheski). However, the orthopedic bandage disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,323 involves the use of plaster of Paris, and thus is subject to the disadvantages outlined hereinabove for plaster of Paris orthopedic casts, including an inferior strength-to-weight ratio and poor air permeability. A second example of an orthopedic bandage using a polyester fabric which is not a knitted fabric is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,958 (Ersfeld et al.). However, because the polyester fabric backing disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,958 causes the cast to have a somewhat lower strength and a lower rigidity than fiberglass casts, these casting materials require more layers of casting tape to achieve a weight bearing orthopedic cast.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,566 (Sekine et al.) discloses an orthopedic casting tape providing stretchability which comprises a knitted fibrous substrate impregnated with a water-curable synthetic resin wherein the substrate consists of synthetic organic fiber stretch yam solely, in pan stretch yam and in part artificial fibers or in pan stretch yam and in pan mixtures of natural and artificial fibers. The stretch yams are preferably those in which the stretchability is conferred by providing spiral or zigzag patterns of the synthetic fibers and utilizing the thermal plasticity and shrinkage properties of the synthetic fibers which are non-elastomeric.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that what is needed in the an is an orthopedic casting material which has both the advantages of plaster of Paris, e.g., good moldability and palpability of the fine bone structure, and the advantages of non-plaster of Paris materials, e.g., good strength-to-weight ratio and good air permeability. In this regard it would be a significant advancement in the art to provide such a combination of advantages without actually using plaster of Paris, thereby avoiding the inherent disadvantages of plaster of Paris outlined herein. It would be a further advancement in the an to provide such non-plaster of Paris orthopedic casting materials which have as good or better properties than the orthopedic casting materials of the prior art, and which can be made to be significantly less expensive, and therefore less cost prohibitive, than prior an orthopedic casting materials employing knitted fabrics such as fiberglass knits. Such orthopedic casting materials and methods for preparing the same are disclosed and claimed herein.